Hey!

Hey!

You're gone, gone, gone away

I watched you disappear

All that's left is a ghost of you

"Hey!" Annie called softly to the blonde boy slumped in the chair outside the door of the makeshift hospital room in Snow's mansion. The eighteen year old didn't turn around and the twenty three year old woman began to worry that he might be having a flashback but taken in his slumped shoulders she quickly realized it was not the hijacked memories but a recent pain that kept him there, made it hard to hear another calling to him, and made him try to go inward as she did when the memories or reality go too bad. "Hey!" She said again but a little louder and received more of a reaction as he lifted his head from his hands and she caught sight of his red rimmed blue eyes from a combination of recent crying and lack of sleep. He turned around slowly searching for the source of the noise with his blue eyes wide and wild and the cuffs holding his wrists together and simultaneously to the chair clinked together. Upon catching sight of the woman with the dark curly hair, the big sea green eyes, and a rounder belly than he remembered her previously having.

"Annie." Peeta sighed with relief upon realizing it was her and not someone trying to take him away from his self-imposed sentry duty, the job that he absolutely refused to leave even to sleep. As she walked up to the teenager, she smiled at him and ignored the cuffs on his wrists as she knew all too well of his hijacking produced flashbacks.

"Peeta, it's good to see you again." Her sweet voice greeted him earning a half smile from the half asleep and completely broken young man. "Where's Finn?" When her question reached his ears he ducked his head in shame with only a ghost left of the smile that had been there previously. "What is it Peeta? What's wrong?" Annie begged to know but the baker's boy just sat there staring at the ground like it was suddenly the most interesting thing he'd ever seen as he tried desperately to form words, words that just wouldn't come, and his body started shaking all over again. When he finally got the nerve to look up into the panic-stricken face that was Annie Odair he caught sight of not only her trembling lips but also Finnick Odair standing behind her looking as translucent, pale, and hurting as they come. "Peeta answer me!" The woman all but screamed as his shell shocked face looked on yet again unhearing as the teen instead looked into his dead friend's eyes as he felt the flashbacks begin to come and he begged them, begged him, to keep them at bay, he couldn't deal with them today.

"He's gone Annie." He finally got out after what felt like an eternity to the panicking pregnant woman, he meant to continue to tell her exactly what was going on but instead caught Finnick's aching sea green eyes suddenly beside him, "But you're gone, gone, gone away Finnick, I watched you disappear." Peeta told the apparition who only smiled at him before he truly lost it and collapsed back into his chair with his head knocking painfully loud against the wall. Some voice in the back of his head told him to dig his wrists into the cuffs to keep him grounded without Katniss' voice there to whisper to him and beg him to stay. Instead of a flashback though the survivor passed out and his body lolled forward and painfully hit the floor with his hands still cuffed to the chair that crashed beside him. The pregnant widow stood there in shock as she tried to process the knowledge that Finn, her only anchor to reality most days, was gone and her only connection to him was currently unconscious at her feet.

"Help!" She screamed once she retained the use of her lungs, her body shook with the sobs she tried to hold back. "Somebody help me!" But no doctors came running to her rescue and she fell to the floor in a heap with her hands clamped over her ears as she screamed soundlessly over and over again for unheard cries for help.

"Annie, you've got to calm down now." A voice reached her and her sea green eyes flew open to see the one and only Finnick kneeling there on the floor beside her looking translucent and panicked. "Annie, please. Please, dear sweet Annie." He begged and the sight of her ghost of a husband shocked her into calming gown and instead started hiccupping rather than sobbing continuously.

"Finn!" She exclaimed and reached for his face only for her hand to go through and she whimpered, "What's going on?" The image smiled gently at her and his sea green eyes met hers of the matching color.

"You needed help so I came."

"But you're dead, Finn." Annie cried out and he looked hurt by her words but she pressed on nonetheless, she needed to be heard by him now more than ever, "You're dead and gone and all that's left is a ghost of you."

"I am dead." The ghost affirmed as it nodded its head sympathetically, "but I won't ever leave you. Just because you won't always be able to see me doesn't mean I won't be there. You have to be strong for me Annie, okay?" Finnick replied as ghostly tears flowed down his checks.

"I'll try Finn but without you, I don't know how to be strong, I have no left." The woman managed to hiccup out as his green eyes looked into hers.

"You do, I know you do. You just have to do as I taught you with the breathing and the mantra and you'll be alright. You are strong, and you do have people left including that boy on the floor beside you, the baby in your belly, and the girl in the operating room that the boy was guarding. If you ever need me, I'll be there, in your heart or looking over your shoulder." Annie smiled for the first time earning a smile from the man, "I promised to protect you and I'm not going to let this setback stop me." Only Finn could call his death a setback, "Help is on the way and I have to leave you now sweetheart." His ghostly hand floated into hers and she looked into his eyes and nodded. She was strong enough, she had to be, and she was never alone, Finn would always be there, he promised.

"Come visit me soon, promise?"

"Promise." He grinned as he started to fade away. Standing up stiffly she managed to hide the effects of the sobs and it looked like she was only frightened by the boy passing out. When the doctors finally did arrive she had gotten Peeta back into the chair and held him up so that he wasn't lying on the floor. They came and strapped him to a bed beside Katniss' and Annie came and sat in between the two other broken creatures that were her friends and fellow survivors. Sitting down in a chair that she set in between their beds and with a hand resting lightly on her stomach she whispered to herself and Finnick if he was listening.

"I am strong, I will be strong for them. I promise Finn." Somewhere the ghost of the District 4 victor, mentor, husband, and father-to-be smiled.